compression and mixdown help needed

Hi , I was wondering if anyone can help.....I usually record live instruments, guitar and bass etc..... but decided to try my hand at electronic music, all software synths and drum machines etc..
But I came to a problem, I need help with the compression af the tracks,
at the moment I have Cakewalk with about 17 channels of audio and each sound on a different track, eg, snare on track 1, bass drum -track 2 and so on..
What would be the best way to mix it down? and what kind of settings of compression would i need to use?
thankyou, from a dumb...but learning bloke
cheers